There were two floors of student housing at the University of White Chasm. The lower floor was reserved for commoners, and the upper floor was reserved for minor nobles, such as Lords, Ladies, and Viscounts. The only people ambitious enough to name themselves "Emperor" or "King" were the Heritors, and nobody dared challenge the titles that they granted themselves. After all, they had auras the size of cities. Also, they had their own Eight Color Monastery, and no Heritor in history had ever debased themselves by schooling with the lesser castes.

The dormitories were all old wooden things, warped beyond structural integrity. If not for the efforts of the Ethermancy Enthusiast Club, the place would have long ago succumbed to lethal quantities of black mold. Seth immediately seduced one of the females on the second floor, so during that first weekend he was absent from his little corner of Quinn's room, leaving Quinn alone with his books. The oval green rug on the floor was his only companion in the lamplight as he attempted to catch up with the few weeks of classes that he had missed.

Bright and early in the morning, Quinn found Seth in the fog and they walked through the tall, wet, muddy grass to the lecture halls on the west side of campus. There were at least four different architectural styles in the University: warped wood, glorious marble, dank old stone, and a strange bone-like substance that seemed to predate all the others. The lecture halls were constructed from the latter material, huge crab shells of eerie white bone decorated without by statues of Mother Summer and Father Winter. Within, they were dark, horrible places, shaped like amphitheaters with descending tiers of chairs surrounding an elevated lecture platform. Huge clerestory windows focused the light down on the professor's dais, like some petty god or emperor.

Professor Morne stood upon the platform in silence, waiting for the students to shuffle in. Like the other faculty, he wore dark robes decorated with red and silver filigree. The huge black swan emblem on his chest marked him as being a distant relative of House Aden, the ruling family. He was quite bald, though his black-gray beard supplemented this deficiency. One of his drooping eyes was hidden behind a thin monocle.

Many of the students around the room were garbed in uniforms clearly associated with various Heritors. Some of them wore the shades of blue associated with the Empire of Nydia, some wore the blood-red robes of Vjiskald, while others wore the orange-green uniforms of Truscasia. The students from the Theocracy of the Lawgiver wore white-green uniforms, curiously with the gavel sigil armbands ripped off.

After some announcements and a few other logistical concerns, Professor Morne began his lecture. "Over the past few weeks, we discussed the humans and the draconic whelps who migrated to our world. Previous quizzes will only constitute a small portion of your final grades. The real meat of this course begins today.

"Modern history begins with the discovery of the witchstone. Renna the Witch, the descendant of a Green Dragon whelp, was the first to attempt to study the celestial object. She concluded that its location in the heavens was correlated with the rate of creation of new witches here in our world. Reyndell, the descendent of the Purple Dragon whelp named Marunavi, and the most powerful witch in the world, was the first to prove that the influence of the witchstone could not be mitigated."

I just want to invent flying machines, Quinn thought.

Catching this lapse in attention, Seth punched Quinn in the ribs. He struggled not to cry out and interrupt the lecture.

"Thus began the decades-long war between Renna and Reyndell. At the end of this war, Renna would be named The Scientist, and Reyndell would forever be remembered as The Charlatan King. Unfortunately, due to the savage and prolonged nature of the war, accurate records did not survive. In the end, the world was nearly destroyed by a magic ritual. The Charlatan King siphoned most of the water from the Sister World here to our planet, which had the effect of completely destroying the climate here. Four out of the five major continents were drowned, and the survivors who managed to find boats were exterminated before reaching the shores of our plateau.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"During the war with Renna, the Charlatan King developed a style of magic that allowed him to modify souls. He used this new type of magic to corrupt his own family. Famously, he corrupted his own daughter, Annatiki, and transformed her into the Bloodraker, a weapon that even Renna feared. While Renna held the advantage in terms of magical and technological development, Reyndell enjoyed absolute control over the Bloodraker. Some said that it was a stalemate, but Renna knew the truth. Eventually Reyndell would win, and the Bloodraker was destined to be her doom.

"At the time, Fiona of the Morning Mist, ancestor of the modern Aden clan, was one of Reyndell's concubines. She was the first to reach out to Renna to negotiate the terms of a temporary alliance. Renna developed a magical technique that temporarily granted the Bloodraker enough power to kill Reyndell. Once Reyndell was dead, the Bloodraker killed Renna. Then down the list she kept going, like shopping for groceries. Most of the witches in the world were dead before Renna's technique collapsed and the Bloodraker was vulnerable. When the key moment came, the Elder Saint killed the Bloodraker and took control of our world."

Quinn raised his hand.

"What is your name?" Professor Morne asked.

"Quinn!"

"Mister Quinn, do you have a question?"

"Where did the Elder Saint come from?" Quinn asked.

"She was just some random witch in hiding," Professor Morne replied. "There was an entire spectrum of witches between Reyndell and Annatiki, witches who waited for Renna's spell to wane. The Elder Saint happened to be the strongest of the lot. Once she killed the Bloodraker, she leveraged the oculomancers to write her into history."

"If anyone can write themselves into history," Quinn shouted, "then how do we know the Elder Saint is real? What if the Bloodraker never died? What if she just... went on pretending to be the Elder Saint?"

"An excellent question," Professor Morne said. "In fact, I invite you to spend ten or fifteen years reading the primary sources yourself. Then, if you still believe such a thing, I invite you to present your evidence before the faculty of this University. It would be a landmark discovery. However, as my student, I do not expect you to read all of the primary sources. If you choose to do so, it must be on your own time."

Another student raised her hand. "Professor!"

"Yes?"

"What spell did the Bloodraker use to kill Reyndell?"

"Excellent question! Unfortunately, both Renna and Annatiki are dead, so we have no way of knowing."

How convenient, Quinn thought.

"Oh! Before I forget," the Professor said. He pointed up to the open door of the lecture hall, where an oculomancer stood beside an open crate. She held what appeared to be a blue torch in one hand. "On your way out, be sure to grab an ether candle. The meteorologists say that we might experience an Ethersleep soon. If you have a quiz or other exam during the Ethersleep, you may need to ignite the candle. If you work for a steamboat or steam engine company, your company will provide sufficient ether candles to continue operating during Ethersleep."

Quinn waved his hand in the air.

"Yes Mister Quinn?" the Professor asked with a hint of exhaustion.

"What is Ethersleep?" Quinn asked.

"You are new here, so you must have missed the lecture where your ethermancy professor covered the topic. Very well. Ethersleep is an atmospheric phenomenon where most of the free ether in the atmosphere is consumed without warning. This tends to happen a few days or weeks after the Sister World glows with red or magenta light. We have ether candles that you can burn which will allow you to continue to use ethermancy. Please acquire one before you leave the building."

"What can cause ethermancy to stop working even with a candle?" Quinn asked.

"Only the witches can answer that question," Professor Morne replied. "There are some things that cannot be determined with science or through the study of history. Typically, it is because there is some active agent that does not leave behind a written record of their actions. If you were to ask my professional opinion, I would say that there was a spat between Heritor Alyesha and Heritor Maxius the Younger, and the Elder Saint picked a side. It has nothing to do with us."

Satisfied with this answer, Quinn nodded. Seth punched him in the leg, and he slumped down into his chair.